WLSC Radio - Loris, South Carolina

“Banana” Jack Murphy is a youthful looking 43, but his young looks belie the twenty-five years he’s spent as a broadcaster. He began on the radio a few weeks after graduating from high school and has been at it ever since. He’s worked as a dj in hard rock, classic rock, country, and bluegrass as well as doing radio and TV interviewing, selling advertising, and doing general promotion. With this broad experience, it’s little wonder that when he got the chance he purchased a small radio station and started developing the sort of programming best representing his interests and enthusiasm. WLSC (AM 1240) in Loris, South Carolina is the result.

Jack became “Banana” Jack about twenty years ago when he moved to Myrtle Beach and was broadcasting the morning program with a partner named O.J. (no…not THAT O.J.). The station wanted listeners to have something with their O.J., so they figured bananas went well and Jack was named. He’s been “Banana” Jack ever since. A slight man, Jack seems larger than his size as his enthusiasm for his present effort is so great. As we drove to Loris from our campsite at Ocean Lakes, we came into WLSC’s listening area and heard some God and Country country music, Jack’s enthusiastic presentation of upcoming events and possibilities, some classic country with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and a few ads. We came into Loris, a small, neat southern town which expects to benefit from the expansion westward of the Grand Strand as land, even in these slow times, has become ever less available and more expensive near the beach. WLSC is located in a brick storefront on the corner of SC 9 and Main Street, an ideal location for local folks to stop in and chew the fat, listen to music, or perform live.

The WLSC studios are still a work in progress, having only recently moved to town from a dilapidated mobile home a few miles out of town where the transmitter is still located. The storefront window looks right in on the broadcast studio where Jack is working. He’s been doing live radio, but as we come in he pushes a few buttons and steps out to greet us while the technology takes over. For the next hour the music plays, the ads run, and the show goes on without Jack’s having to take the mic again. We sit together on a beige leather sectional and talk about his career in radio, his love of country and bluegrass music, and his hope and dreams for this small radio station. We’re interrupted briefly as a young musician gives Jack a call to seek air time and they arrange an in-studio interview and later as workmen come in to install insulation - a work in progress.

At present, the station is programming bluegrass mostly on Saturday with some additional tunes interspersed with the country and gospel offerings. At noon on Saturdays WLSC carries Cindy Baucom’s syndicated Knee Deep in Bluegrass program, an IBMA award winning show heard nationwide,. After Baucom’s program, Jack spins three hours of bluegrass programming from 2:00 until 5:00 PM on Saturday afternoons. Plans are afoot for increasing the amount of bluegrass played at the station, and, since there is no other bluegrass outlet in the region, Jack expects to be able to draw an audience for it. For listeners not within WLSC’s signal range, the station streams audio here.

The studio has sufficient space to permit live programming. At present most of the live offerings are local gospel singers who perform and preach from the studio on Sundays and Monday evenings. His plans, however, include a couple of programs which will include live bluegrass programming. “Bluegrass on the Corner” and “Live from Loris” are both in the plan and will be coming soon. Jack is also programming two syndicated segments of western music on Saturdays. Clear out West features Andy and Jim Nelson telling stories and spinning western tunes. Spirit of the West celebrates cowboy life.

Just as we’re preparing to return home, we sight a small space toward the back lined from floor to ceiling with old 45 rpm and 33 1/3 recordings of classic rock, country, and bluegrass. The albums and records are in pristine condition and will provide listeners with hundreds of hours of pleasure re-experiencing music too little played on the radio these days. Original albums by Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Kitty Wells, Flatt & Scruggs and more are there. Jack pulls out albums and records while he excitedly shares his memories of these performers and his love for the music. The décor of his station will feature his collection of recording and radio memorabilia. All in all, Banana Jack Murphy has shown remarkable ambition and ability as he takes a station which had seen better days and prepares it to fill niches where a need exists in his broadcasting area. Bluegrass and country music fans could do much worse than check in on this station as it develops.

YeeHaw Junction Bluegrass Festival - Preview

The 2008 Florida bluegrass season kicks off at YeeHaw Junction from January 24 – 27 with a full schedule of national and regional bands, plenty of field jamming, and first rate vendors. Located on the grounds of the “Historic Desert Inn,”in YeeHaw Junction, FL and promoted by Steve Dittman, YeeHaw Junction provides few amenities, sits in an isolated location, and offers just about everything a bluegrass fan could want. The area is cattle country, and the fields on which the festival takes place show ample evidence of recent use by large animals. Although the junction referred to in its name was a stop on the Florida East Coast Railway, today the nearest transportation is an exit on the Florida Turnpike where US route 441 crosses it. The Desert Inn, once servicing cowboys as the local brothel, has now become respectable. YeeHaw junction is about 30 miles west of Vero Beach on the east coast of the state. You can find a map here.

The festival features a fine selection of bands, mostly leaning towards the traditional side. The Gibson Brothers, making a rare sojourn into the Florida scene, will headline on Saturday. With their new CD, Iron and Diamonds, due out in a month or two, they will surely preview many of the songs on this long anticipated album. I heard the title song as well as another new tune called “Angry Man” at their sister Erin’s Christmas concert. Both are very strong pieces. Seven of the twelve entries on the new disk are written by the Gibson’s, so count on hearing some of their greats from the past as well as the new material.

The Gibson Brothers BandBlue Moon RisingBlue Moon Rising will perform on Friday and Saturday. Their new CD is being released this month and should be available at YeeHaw. This group was nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2006 and has toured and gained popularity since, emerging as a first rate group. Chris West, a talented singer/songwriter contributes much of their original work. Keith Garret on mandolin adds a high quality voice. This band has a fine sound and fans will recognize a number of their songs, which have had extensive play on XM radio as well as other bluegrass radio stations. Unfortunately their web site and MySpace entries provide too little up-to-date information to help in writing a serious preview.

Two festival mainstays who never fail to please fans and newcomers will be at YeeHaw Junction, each for two days of performances. The James King Band will perform on Saturday and Sunday, offering their blend of “sad and mournful” songs filled with death, loss, and misery while always entertaining fans who request many of these tunes from their own list of favorites. James King has one of the finest and most interesting voices in bluegrass music. When he’s on his game, he’s one of the very best. The band has undergone some recent changes with Adam Haynes on fiddle leaving to join the new Dailey-Vincent Band. Adam Poindexter has been back with King for about a year and John Wade is rock solid on bass. Kevin Prater’s Monroe style mandolin and high tenor singing blends wonderfully with King’s baritone. Nothin’ Fancy is scheduled for performances on Friday and Saturday with their unique combination of fine singing and humor. This band never fails to please. They owe much in style and content to The Country Gentlemen, often acknowledging this debt, but they have their own unique sound, led by Mike Andes singing many of his own compositions and providing strong mandolin. The instrumental standout in this group is Chris Sexton on fiddle. Trained in classical violin at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, Chris blends perfect bluegrass pitch with humorous musical references to a much broader repertory. He becomes the butt and the source of much of the group’s humor. Mitch Davis provides understated and solid banjo work. Gary Farris singing high tenor and playing rhythm guitar, is a mainstay of solid performance. Tony Shorter on bass has had a varied career including stints in jazz and rock which help to inform his bass playing. He sings tenor harmonies as well. Nothin’ Fancy keeps its show fresh and lively. New fans are in for a very pleasant surprise and those familiar with this band will be pleased to hear old favorites as well as new musical and comedic material.

Nothin' Fancy

The Martin Family Band will perform on Thursday and Friday. Based in Jefferson City, MO, this band of young pickers fronted by older family members is self taught and, based on cuts on their MySpace page have a solid, traditional sound. The Martins have been SPBGMA Midwest Instrumental Group of the Year for several years and this year are nominated for awards in seven SPBGMA categories. They tour widely and can be heard from coast to coast. While they claim influences from a range of bands from traditional to more progressive, their sound on the cuts they offer is pretty traditional and presents a solid sound. They do not yet appear to have a record label or to have produced a CD. Readers of this blog know my concerns about family bands. I’m open to hearing and seeing this band, but really can’t provide too much information about what to expect from their performance.

The Doerfel Family Band from northern New York will appear on Saturday and Sunday so as not to overlap the Martins. The Doerfels are a very attractive looking band who sell themselves as filled with self-motivating young pickers. The father Tom’s use of a dollar bill to bribe one of the younger family members to perform at a festival last year brings this description into question. Nevertheless, they seem to be wholesome and happy group. Watching the kids between sets spread out on the floor with coloring books scattered about and the older kids taking care of the younger ones strengthens this impression. The band maintains a kind of Amish/country plain look which fits well with their red headed, freckle-faced wholesomeness. They tour full time and the kids are home schooled. While the band retains a strong visual presence for me and their youthful enthusiasm for their play is clear, I can’t, for the life of me, recall a single musical highlight of their performance.

Monroe Crossing

Monroe Crossing is a Minnesota-based bluegrass band appearing at YeeHaw Junction at least partly because they happen to be returning from the Bell Buckle Cruise on the first day of the festival. The bios of band members on their web site suggest a wealth of experience leavened by a good dose of youth. They are a busy band, but probably not well known outside the Midwest, their usual touring grounds. The band was founded in 2000 when three other acoustic bands from Minnesota failed, allowing this band to form.

Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike appear on Friday and Saturday. The last time we saw this band, Valerie was recovering from throat surgery and couldn’t sing at all. By this time she should be back in fine voice, which is fine indeed. Becky Buller, the lovely singer/songwriter/fiddler adds immeasurably to the quality of Liberty Pike and supplements Smith’s very pleasant voice and songs with her own very high quality. Chad Graves on Dobro is quite good. The other two new additions we haven’t heard, but Valerie has high standards in the musicians who work for her.

David Davis and the Warrior River Boys can always be counted on for high energy Monroe style bluegrass with an Alabama twist to it. Fiddler Owen Saunders is especially good. This high energy band deserves more national recognition than it gets. They provide a first rate performance that will have fans yelping for more. The Larry Gillis Band, coming from Georgia, also offers speed but last time we saw them they seemed a little ragged. Since he and his brother split, the band has not generated the same level of enthusiasm as before. The addition of Russell Rose on Guitar and Evan Rose on mandolin (both formerly of the Lonesome Whistle Band) may presage a major uptick in the quality of this band. Russell is a very solid rhythm guitarist and singer. His son Evan, now about seventeen, was a true mandolin prodigy when we saw him last, and there’s no reason to think he hasn’t continued to improve.

Several other bands grace this festival. The Cunning-hams, Bits of Grass, and Palms Bluegrass will be featured on a Sunday that offers lots of bluegrass gospel. Mike and Mary Robinson will open the morning with their bluegrass gospel sing, always popular with folks who want to sing and pick the old songs as well. Mike will offer a brief and thoughtful message, too. Goldwing Express will also perform on Sunday. The charm of this Branson, MO based band continues to elude me, but I’m told by promoters that they bring folks in the gate, and visual evidence suggests there are people at many festivals primarily to see them perform. Their shtick is corny and highly manipulative with blatant appeals to motherhood, country, nation, and God all wrapped up in one concluding pastiche. I find their approach more insulting than inspiring, but apparently I’m not in a majority on this one. On the other hand, The Bluegrass Parlor Band will thrill people seeking to be on the front side in recognizing and applauding young talent. Featuring young pickers Cory, Jarrod, and Tyler Walker, this band follows in the long tradition of the Bluegrass Parlor in bringing young pickers of exceptional promise to fans.

The Bluegrass Parlor Band

YeeHaw Junction opens the season on a high note despite the question hanging in the air concerning how well attended such events will be. The price of gasoline and the general unsteadiness of the economy suggests that promoters will be taking a risk. They have sought to maintain low charges for those attending, while costs of getting to and staying at events have risen for both fans and bands. Steve Dittman has assembled a first rate lineup for YeeHaw Junction and one can only wish him success.

The New Hampshire Presidential Primary

This morning we drove out to do some errands prior to leaving for our winter bluegrass trip. As we approached the bank in the center of town we realized that a John McCain rally was about to begin. After parking, we went over to the bandstand in the middle of the park and were told that McCain was expected in about half an hour. I went across the street to finish our banking while Irene grabbed the McCain sign a worker offered her and started waving it. Now, we’ve been married for nearly forty-four years. It’s a mixed marriage (i.e. we belong to separate parties), but after all these years we’re still talking to each other. We watch lots of TV news, we discuss the issues and the candidates a lot, sometimes we argue, we’ve even been known to stop talking for a few hours, but, for the most part, it’s been an amicable disagreement that we both enjoy. Attending political events and being involved in this election has been an important part of the season.

We moved to New Hampshire for our retirement for a number of reasons, mostly to be nearer our sons and their kids when we’re at home. Elder son is an attorney whose career has been very much involved in New Hampshire party politics, and Irene went to a number of events during the 1996 presidential election year. She had told me how exciting it was, but I sort of discounted the New Hampshire primary as an important event in thinking about our move here. Well, I was wrong and it really is exciting. The New Hampshire primary will be held tomorrow. We’re stopping at the polls on our way south. In the general election our votes often cancel each other out, but this year we each believe our vote will count and that it will be important.

Actually, we’ve only gone to see two of the candidates in person. We went to see John Edwards at two rallies, the most recent about two weeks ago. He was preceded by Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne who sang a couple songs before introducing Granny D, a nonagenarian who walked across the United States in support of campaign finance reform and lost to Judd Gregg in the race of U.S. Senate. She introduced Edwards. Edwards is handsome, dynamic, and passionate about the importance of achieving his goals. He exudes confidence and sincerity. Irene found herself rising to applaud his money lines and really taken by his wife Elizabeth. The whole event was both moving and persuasive.

This morning, John McCain walked across the street from his bus, the Straight Talk Express, hit the rostrum full speed, and gave an enthusiastic and believable stump speech. He emphasized his connection to veterans, his distance from George Bush on matters of deficit spending, and from almost everyone in his support of the military surge. He said that while people might disagree with him on specific issues, they would never doubt his integrity or his commitment to the American people. He was particularly strong in his support of medical care for returning veterans. The presence of retired Senator Phil Gramm of Texas at the rally was mute testimony to McCain’s commitment to fiscal conservatism. (I mentioned to Senator Gramm that we had heard him give the fourth of July speech in the football stadium in Tyler, TX in 1976. He remarked I was giving away my age.) By the end of the rally Irene was enthusiastic and I was confident that if McCain won the election we’d be in good hands. As a matter of fact, while we both know this will be an important election, each of us is confident that the choice this year will be between two strengths, not a “hold your nose” election.

Beyond the rallies, our phone has been ringing off the hook and the doorbell chimes daily with canvassers coming to extol the strengths of another candidate. Democrats have been more in evidence than Republicans, but both have appeared. Each of us has been polled on the phone by a national polling organization, Irene by LA Times/Bloomsberg and me by Pew. After a while we’ve begun to feel that not only does our vote count, but that our vote will help to mold the votes of those in later primaries. It’s really good fun and makes us feel as if we’re involved in an important aspect of the American experience.

Drama City by George Pelecanos - Book Review

Drama City opens as Lorenzo Brown awakens in his plain but clean flat, gets dressed, and takes his dog Jasmine out for a walk, being sure to bring a plastic bag along to pick up Jasmine’s business. On his return he does his exercises, but no longer with the intensity he once did them during his eight years in prison. At the same time Rachel Lopez wakes in her bed and gets ready for work while fighting something of a hangover. She puts on clothes which hide her figure well. As she leaves for work she picks up file folders, her keys, and her badge, admiring herself in the mirror before leaving for work. With such simple, plain details George Pelecanos sets in motion another one of his fine crime novels set in the seedy, drug infested world of Washington, D.C.

Pelecanos is the author of fourteen crime novels, of which Drama City is the thirteenth. There are a couple of trilogies, starting with the Nick Stefanos stories about Greek-Americans interacting with blacks in a multi-ethnic D.C. He also has written a series of novels featuring Derek Strange, a Washington police detective who discovers new maturity and strength as the series develops. There is a novel set in the early forties giving the back story for Nick Stefanos, but it seems to be out of print. Recently he has written more stand alone novels as his voice has become ever stronger and his sense of character and plot have become richer. He’s a master of dialogue and the telling detail, perhaps because he’s become such a fine film writer. Pelecanos is one of the writers and co-producer of HBO’s The Wire, without a doubt the finest piece of television drama ever. Drama City has much the same kind of foreboding atmosphere as The Wire as well as the sharply drawn characters whose lives have bleak pasts and even bleaker futures. Pelecanos' writing is gritty and often violent, but his violence takes on a certain beauty and life of its own, fully fitting into the environment he creates for it.

Pelecanos frames his narratives with music, and not music I’m familiar with. His characters love the music reflecting their character and backgrounds – jazz, rap, soul, rock, punk, and more. The music his characters hear reflects their world, and even though I don’t know the sounds, their music makes the world more familiar to me, too. Mostly it’s a pretty hopeless world peopled with drug dealers, addicts, crooked cops, and just plain people trying to stay straight in a difficult world. Lorenzo and Rachel are just such people. The story of their struggle to keep their dignity and survive in a world where many don’t make it forms the kernel of this gripping tale. Pelecanos has been well recognized as a master story teller, and this novel is hugely satisfying. There were times during my reading I had to set the book aside and take a walk because the tension had become so great. If you haven’t read Pelecanos yet, you need to. You won’t regret it.

Published by Little Brown at $24.95 and now available in paperback everywhere.

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman - Book Review

Jerome Groopman, M.D. has written a book that provides a great service to anyone who ever had to visit a doctor. How Doctors Think (trade paperback edition out in March) helps readers to understand how our docs approach solving the problems of our health, but even more important, he suggests ways to help our physicians focus more thoughtfully. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Groopman’s book is his willingness to open the door of doctor error and provide insights into what goes on inside a doc’s mind leading to those errors. He says that the majority of such errors lie in two kinds of problems. First, the cognitive errors doctors make in thinking through a complex series of factors to arrive at diagnosis and a treatment plan. Second, the effects on medical practice of the pressure from insurance companies, HMO’s, and government agencies to reduce costs by restricting practice. They force doctors to see more patients, to spend less time with each one through their reduction in payments, and reimburse expensive and spectacular surgeries at higher rates than they pay for the more mundane practice of nipping illness in the bud at the level of primary care.

Dr. Groopman teaches at Harvard Medical School where he holds a chair and is Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He specializes in hematology and oncology and writes regularly for The New Yorker magazine, where several of the chapters in this book first appeared. An extended biographical sketch appears here. He is the author of three previous general interest books as well as numerous professional papers.

In How Doctors Think Groopman identifies various ways that doctors’ diagnoses follow established patterns closing them off from engaging in original thinking and problem solving. He uses numerous case studies to support his assertions and to show how some doctors learn to force themselves outside stereotyped ways of thinking to find alternative solutions to problems viewed as intractable. The case studies feature engaging patients and doctors in real situations that actively involve the reader in the process of diagnosis and treatment. The result is a fascinating book whose narrative intrigues while its principles are clear not only to medical practicioners, but all decision makers.

Groopman champions the role and function of the primary care physician. He argues “the higher we go in the scale of specialist training, the less complex the medical problem becomes.” (98) Medical gatekeepers encounter patients who complain of symptoms that may have little or nothing to do with the underlying disease. They must work through a myriad of indicators to arrive at a preliminary diagnosis and refer to the appropriate specialist. This requires deep and thoughtful attention to physical as well as emotional components. He cites evidence that the typical doc listens to a patient for a mere eighteen seconds before beginning to talk. It has become increasingly fashionable for insurance companies and hospitals to develop templates and clinical algorithms leading to a narrowing of the doctor’s thinking process. Such formats often treat too few symptoms, deny useful or essential tests, and reduce the doctor’s ability to think deeply and seriously about solving the patient’s problem and often leading to a mistaken diagnosis. Groopman repeatedly emphasizes the importance of avoiding the stereotypical thinking that comes from the use of templates and clinical prototypes just because most patients fit into the typical diagnosis.

A number of bias enhancers function in a physician’s world, and it’s important to be aware of them. How the physicians feel about the patient, doctors’ discomfort with uncertainty, their tendency to piggyback on previous diagnoses, and their need to be right all affect the quality of their thinking. The pressure placed on them to see more patients and spend less time with each one makes their decision making even more difficult and precarious. Doctors’ efforts are further sabotaged by the pressure brought upon them by patients requesting drugs and treatments advertised in the media and sold to them by the drug companies, for whom Groopman reserves a special spot in hell for their pressure tactics while recognizing their importance in fighting disease and promoting research. Doctors are not immune from his criticism for their willingness to accept the largesse of the drug companies and equipment manufacturers.

Groopman continually returns to the “art” of diagnosis, focusing on doctors who go to special lengths not to allow their preconceptions or the previous judgments of others, keeping them from digging deeper to find a correct solution. He points out that medicine is often uncertain, but doctors are under pressure to present a specific differential diagnosis. Diagnosis may be made even more difficult because the new technology provides a plethora of detail. For instance, a CAT scan or an MRI may provide thousands of pictures for a radiologist to examine. Drug companies, he says, “create a clinical disorder by medicalizing normal changes and challenges in life.” (209-210) Thus, aging is seen as a condition subject to treatment rather than a part of the human life cycle.

Finally, the book’s most important chapter may be the last one “Epilogue: A Patient’s Questions” in which Groopman instructs readers on how to question their doctors in such a way as to encourage the practitioners to think through medical problems more thoroughly and in new ways. By suggesting non-threatening ways to ask open ended questions, Groopman seeks to help patients optimize their doctors' thinking and decision making without raising their defensiveness. Throughout this book, Groopman emphasizes the humanity of people in the medical profession. For good and ill, these are people subject to the strengths and weaknesses of all humans. When patients work with their physicians to help them be their best, they do themselves and the profession the greatest service. By writing this book, Jerome Groopman has contributed to such an enterprise.

New Year Portfolio - Ring in the New

Happy New Year! With the new year I present a group of young pickers who, if you haven't already seen and heard them, you'll be encountering them soon. I've tried to keep my list mostly to pickers under twenty years of age. Again, the list is not exhaustive, being limited to people I've heard, seen, and photographed. Nevertheless, I think it provides a representitive picture of what you might expect in the future.

Jarrod and Tyler Walker (Bluegrass Parlor Band)

Josh Pinkham

Molly Kate Cherryholmes

Ryan Holladay

Sierra Hull

Jason Davis

Katie and Clint Wilson (Wilson Family Band)

The Lovell Sisters

Cory Walker

Jayme Booher

All pictures by Ted Lehmann, reproduce with permission only